Class in the US... the third conclusion

3Over the long haul, America’s middle-income households have seen their income grow. From 1970 to 2014, these households’ median income increased from $54,682 to $73,392 (in 2014 dollars), a gain of 34%. Lower-income household incomes have grown, too, but not as much: 28% over the same 44-year period. Upper-income household incomes have grown most, up 47% over this period.

However, the nation’s economic progress over the past several decades masks financial setbacks since 2000. Because of the recession in 2001 and the Great Recession of 2007-09, overall household incomes fell from 2000 to 2014. The greatest loss was felt by lower-income households, whose median income fell 9% over this period; the median for middle-income households fell 4%, and that for upper-income households fell 3%.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/10/5-takeaways-about-the-american-middle-class/

Class in the US... the second conclusion

2The decline in the middle represents both economic progress and polarization. The shift shows progress in the sense that a larger share of Americans now live in upper-income households. Fully 21% of American adults in 2015 were upper income, compared with 14% in 1971, a 7-percentage-point increase. The increase in the share of upper-income adults was greater than the change in the opposite direction. Some 29% of U.S. adults were low income in 2015, compared with 25% in 1971.

But the data also show increasing economic polarization: As the distribution of adults thins in the middle, it is bulking up most at the extreme ends of the income distribution, the lowest and highest tiers.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/10/5-takeaways-about-the-american-middle-class/

Class in the US...

The first of five major conclusions from a fascinating study by the respected Pew Foundation...

1Middle-income Americans are no longer the nation’s economic majority. In early 2015, there were 120.8 million adults in middle-income households, matched in number by the 121.3 million adults who were in lower- and upper-income households combined.

This is the culmination of a long slide in which the share of adults in middle-income households has fallen from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2015.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/10/5-takeaways-about-the-american-middle-class/

Mexico's oil trade surplus: going, going, gone...

Mexico’s oil trade surplus has vanished. It maxed out at US$19.4 billion in 2006, falling into single digits in 2013 for the first time in eleven years. The decline became a rout last year when the oil surplus plunged to just US$1.1 billion. In the first nine months of this year, the surplus turned into a US$7.0 billion deficit. It’s the first deficit in central bank's oil trade balance series that begins in 1993.

Where's the risk in the international financial system?

Per former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke (quoted in the October 28 New York Times), the risk to financial stability today comes from emerging markets. In a talk at the London School of Economics, Bernanke highlighted emerging markets and how they react to higher interest rates in the US as a "risk area". The magnitude and nature of that risk is hard to know, he cautioned.

What an independent member of Pemex's Board of Directors has to say...

Here's the conclusion, roughly translated from the Spanish:

"The blame for the risk Pemex face today are decades of corruption and bad administration, from the inefficiencies of a monopoly and the wasteful spending of the oil bonanza by federal, state and local governments. The Energy Reform gives us the opportunity to tackle the drop in oil prices. It will require an enormous effort by everyone. It's an effort that can't be postponed."

Carlos Elizondo's article is well worth the read. Here's the link:
http://www.excelsior.com.mx/opinion/carlos-elizondo-mayer-serra/2015/09/03/1043729

Surprised the peso has been devaluing?

After looking at the numbers on portfolio investment in Mexican money market instruments in the first six months of this year, you won't be. Foreign investment in money market instruments came to a barely discernible US$0.9 billion, down from US$10.8 billion in the first six months of 2014. Portfolio investment in money market instruments in each of the first two quarters of this year was the lowest it’s been in any quarter since 2009.

Any bets on what the numbers will look like for the third quarter?